Herb Ford founded the Pitcairn Islands Study Center, housing an extensive collection on the Bounty.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Herb Ford founded the Pitcairn Islands Study Center, housing an...

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Ford holds a nail, more than 225 years old, salvaged from the Bounty; it's on display at the center.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Ford holds a nail, more than 225 years old, salvaged from the...

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Herb Ford with a model of the ship the Bounty, which is on display at the Pitcairn Islands Study Center.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Herb Ford with a model of the ship the Bounty, which is on display...

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Ford holds copper and nails salvaged from the Bounty, beached and burned on Pitcairn Island.

Photo: Michael Macor, The Chronicle

Ford holds copper and nails salvaged from the Bounty, beached and...

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A prayer book from 1766, it's unclear if the book had been aboard the HMS Bounty, on display at the Pitcairn Islands Study Center on the campus of Pacific Union College on Wednesday Dec. 18, 2013, in Angwin, Ca. The center is considered to have the world's biggest and best archive on the mutiny on the bounty story of 1789 and was founded by Herb Ford, 84, a former teacher at the college.

Pitcairn is a tiny South Pacific island just 1 mile wide and 2 miles long, but with a famous bit of history involving Tahitian women, Captain William Bligh, a ship named the Bounty, and a mutiny on board.

The story of the famous mutiny on the Bounty in April 1789 has been the subject of countless films, starring the likes of Errol Flynn, Clark Gable and Marlon Brando, as well as books, magazine articles and debates. It has also been the focus of study for more than three decades by a scholar from Angwin, an unassuming, soft-spoken octogenarian who has amassed one of the world's biggest and best known archives on Bounty history.

"It's got mutiny, it's got romance, it's got murder, it's got adventure," Ford enthused. "It's got just about everything you can think of that lures people into a story. Hardly a quarter of a year goes by without another book being published somewhere about it."

Ford added, "We now have people coming to the center from all over the world to do research. We have books and material you can't find anywhere else."

Why Napa County?

The center houses encyclopedias on Bligh, the Bounty crew and Pitcairn Island, where some of the mutineers sought refuge. There are demographics on the Pitcairn population and the Bounty crew, and volumes of research on Bligh himself. There are photo tours, Pitcairn Island stamps, and even a modern-day cruise ship schedule for transportation to the island.

"Why is the collection here?" Ford said, having fielded the question before. "Pacific Union College is sponsored by the Seventh-day Adventists, and all Adventist kids - including myself - learn about the Pitcairn Island because it was a showcase of missionary activity of the church in the Pacific."

Ford was working as a teacher in the journalism and communications department at Pacific Union when he got the idea to start a "very aggressive acquisitions program" around the Bounty story. "Part of my hope was that those who want to write about it will consult with us, as a great deal of the storytelling around it had lacked historical accuracy."

The breadfruit trees

Ford takes visitors back more than two centuries, when a seaman named Fletcher Christian turned against his friend and Bounty captain, William Bligh. Bligh and crew had been dispatched to the South Pacific by leaders in England. They were to sail to Tahiti and bring back a certain plant called the breadfruit, which had been introduced by the famous explorer, Capt. James Cook. Cook said the fruit, similar to a potato, would be a great source of cheap food.

"They spent about five months in Tahiti gathering those seedling plants," Ford said of the Bounty crew. "During those months, the sailors had formed some interesting - and fruitful - liaisons with the women of the island. When they got back at sea after five months of lolling around on the beach, they were none too happy with the harsh life of running a sailing ship in the late 1700s."

And Bligh was known for his sharp tongue, which he used "like a sword," Ford said.

"Early in the morning, the mutineers led by Fletcher seized Bligh's arms cache, got Bligh and 18 of his loyalists, and put them in a little boat and basically said, 'Goodbye, we'll never see you again.' " The islands around Tahiti were populated by cannibals, Ford noted, and if Bligh and his men made it to shore, they would be "turned into the evening stew."

"Bligh was a very skilled navigator and he knew how to take care of his men. With this little boat, they made their way across more than 4,000 miles of ocean and made their way back to England. Leaders of the British Navy then sent a crew to go and find the wayward pirates."

Pacific hideout

The mutineers, knowing they needed to hide, discovered a dot of land called Pitcairn Island and settled there. The nine renegade British seamen, along with a dozen Tahitian women and half-dozen Tahitian men, burned the Bounty and found they could hide under the native banyan trees.

Ford said that one of the biggest misrepresentations around the mutiny story is that Bligh was a villain.

"There was never a more loyal, patriotic commander of ships in the British Navy than Capt. William Bligh," Ford said. "His great failing was his preciseness. When he gave an order, he wanted it obeyed. But he was a sailing master to Capt. Cook, and he learned from Cook how to take care of men at sea and to keep them alive."

Ford said that another part of the center's mission is to help today's residents of Pitcairn Island by raising awareness - and money.

"There are about 55 Pitcairn residents today, and about 47 of those are native Pitcairns, who are descendants of the mutineers," said Ford, who has visited the tiny island several times. "The rest are outsiders: there's a pastor on the island, a physician, a police officer from New Zealand, an assistant administrator and a schoolteacher."

He said the Pitcairn residents are trying to boost tourism to the tropical island - there is a museum there, among other things - and they also make what Ford calls some of the purest honey on earth.

Ford said he is amazed by "how alive the Bounty story is." He added, "I'm interested in all of the wrinkles of this story. And I'm certain there is much that I still don't know."